Kwakiutl

Kwakiutl (kwä`kē'təl), group of closely related Native North Americans who inhabit N Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland of British Columbia, Canada. They, together with the Nootka, their southern neighbors, make up the Wakashan branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). Kwakiutl culture was typical of the Northwest Coast area (including the custom of potlatch). The ethnographer Franz Boas produced a significant number of ethnographic studies on the Kwakiutl. Numbering c.15,000 before European contact, they are now reduced to around 4,000 and are mainly engaged in fishing and farming.

Bibliography

See F. Boas, Kwakiutl Ethnography, ed. by H. F. Codere (1966); R. P. Rohner and E. C. Rohner, The Kwakiutl (1970).

---

Kwakiutl

Northwest Coast Indian people who live along the shores of Vancouver Island, B.C., Can., and the mainland opposite. They speak a Wakashan language and call themselves Kwakwaka'wakw, meaning “those who speak Kwakwala.” Traditionally, the Kwakiutl subsisted mainly by fishing and had a technology based largely on woodworking. Their society was stratified by rank, determined primarily by inheritance. The potlatch was elaborately developed and was often combined with dances and songs dramatizing ancestral experiences with supernatural beings. They continue to be known for their highly stylized art, which includes totem poles and striking masks. Early 21st-century population estimates indicated approximately 700 individuals of Kwakiutl descent.